Should college football student athletes get paid?

Starting LT Donovan Smith works on technique in practice.Joe Hermitt- The Patriot News

With
so many college football scandals concerning players taking money or receiving
additional benefits to play at a certain school, is now the time to open up the
check books and start paying these hard working athletes?

Most people,
including some athletes, will say that there is no way that athletes should be
paid to play a sport since most of them are getting a full ride at that school
anyway. While getting a scholarship is a great incentive to playing a varsity
sport at a prestigious institution, most athletes do not get scholarships to
play their sport and simply play for love of the game.

When
you examine what goes into being a student athlete, the lifting, the meetings,
the practices, the games, the study hall hours logged, that is all on top of them
going to class and having to excel in the classroom. Many of us college
students have a tough time doing as well as we want to at Penn State with no
other responsibilities other than going to class.

When you compound this with
the fact that most student athletes are not allowed to work (NCAA says you can
only earn $2,000 an academic year) it becomes very tempting for athletes
to take money especially when they have a family to provide for. Most of these
student athletes, unfortunately, come from underprivileged families and are
parlaying their athletic talent into a better life for themselves and their
families.

Every
year, Penn State and the NCAA makes millions of dollars off their student
athletes. They sell their jerseys, their likeness, and their autographs with
none of that money going to the players who are selling the product that is
Penn State football. How many people reading this have bought a Penn State
jersey? You did not buy it simply because it was Penn State but because of the
athlete or athletes that it represents. I will admit I have the #40, #31, and
#2 jerseys for Dan Connor, Paul Posluszny, and Derrick Williams but none of
those players, who all made it into the NFL, saw a dime of that money and those
jerseys cost about 100 dollars a pop. With all the merchandise and ticket sales
that are purchased solely because of the players on the field, should they not
be entitled to some of the money that the school is making off of them?

Granted,
the counter argument is that not every player on the field is making as much
money for the university as others. I am sure the amount of money that Evan
Royster made for Penn State far surpasses what someone like Tamba Hali made
even though on paper, they were getting the same benefits and perks of being a
student athlete. That is why if you were to pay student athletes, it cannot be
done based on performance or by the amount of money that particular player
earns for the university.

When
you add in the threat of injuries that ultimately occur that can have a drastic
impact on the rest of that players life, it starts to sink in that maybe these
players should get some money for playing. Adam Taliaferro, who made the
miraculous recovery from a paralyzing spinal cord injury he suffered in 2000
against Ohio State, could have spend the rest of his life paralyzed from an
injury that occurred while playing a sport for a scholarship. I personally do
not think that not being able to walk again, and thankfully Adam was able to
make a full recovery, is worth getting a full ride scholarship.

Now I know that
this is the exception and most players do not sustain this serious of an injury
while playing, but the threat is still there. As more and more research is
being done on ex-football players' brains, science shows that playing football
and getting hit in the head will have drastic impacts on that person later on
in life. With that said, even if they do not get hurt while playing at Penn
State, the physical and psychological damage may already be done. Unlike the NFL, there is not a
pension program from athletes that get hurt while playing college football, all
they get is an education that may not be able to be used especially if they
suffer head injuries.

It can
be said that those playing pee-wee football could also suffer the same
debilitating injuries. While that is true, the speed of the game and the
strength that these college football players posses are NFL caliber but the
protections that are in place for these players are far worse than that of
which the NFL provides. Now I am not saying we should pay college players millions
of dollars to get a free education and play football but there should be some
stipend given to the players.

Last
year, Penn State football made $33,017,893 off football alone. Combine
that with the $36,925,949 that was earned from sponsorship, endowments,
and other donations and you are looking at a total of $69,943,842. Now some of
those sponsorship's and endowments come from different sports but the majority
of that is from football. Much of that money goes to other varsity sports like women's
volleyball and field hockey which I think is a great idea. However, even with
all the money spent on other Penn State programs, the university still brings
in $14 million a year off of its athletics. That is more than enough
money to create a stipend pool for these players.

I know
Penn State is one of the biggest revenue generates in college football, but I
am sure that all D1 schools can afford to pay their student athletes,
especially those that play football, something. To keep it fair and to stop this from turning
into the NFL where the highest bidder wins, all stipends would be the same.
That incoming freshman 5 star recruit would get the same amount of money as the
3rd string kicker at another school.

Now I am unaware of just how much money each school makes so I am unable to put a total on the amount that student athletes should get paid but I am
sure a total could be reached that is fair to everyone. Smaller schools and
those in weak conferences are always going to be at a disadvantage which is
nothing new in the college football landscape as the BCS has been
discriminating against them since its inception.

Now I
am not saying that this needs to happen tomorrow, but as a student athlete who
did not get a scholarship, it would be nice to get something for playing a
varsity sport other than two credits. I just wanted to examine this as a
hypothetical because we all know that this most likely will never happen in
college. With that said, I would still love to hear what everyone else thinks!